Kayaker Accused of Faking His Own Death Found in Europe - RUNAWAY DAD

RYAN BORGWARDT'S FAMILY MOURNED HIS TRAGIC LOSS UNTIL THEY LEARNED THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS PRESUMED DROWNING

- K. C. BAKER and WENDY GROSSMAN KANTOR

In a spectacular celestial show, the Perseid meteor shower scored the night sky with white-hot streaks over Wisconsin’s Green Lake on Aug. 11 as the aurora borealis, in a rare coincidence, filled the vast emptiness with an otherworldly glow. “I was out with my camera,” recalls Green Lake resident Joe Norton, 77, a boat builder, who went out on the deep body of water that night. “It’s a pretty dark area, but if the northern lights are active, you get some pretty good pictures.”

FATHER'S FLIGHT "They have a long road ahead," says searcher Keith Cormican about Ryan and Emily Borgwardt and family (above, on Facebook).

Unbeknownst to Norton, there was reportedly somebody else out on Green Lake that night. Ryan Borgwardt, a 44-year-old married father of three, had hitched a trailer with his kayak to his car and left his home in Watertown, Wis., an hour south of the lake, for a fishing trip earlier that day. At about 10:45 p.m., Ryan texted his wife, Emily, 44, to let her know he was done fishing and was headed back to shore, according to the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office. But when hours passed and Ryan never returned home, Emily, a first-grade teacher, began to worry. She called 911 at around 6 a.m. the following day to report her husband of 22 years missing.

Authorities in Green Lake— where other drownings have been reported—sprang into action. Sheriff's deputies soon located Ryan’s abandoned car and trailer near Dodge Memorial Park on the southwest side of the lake. Within a few hours, they had also found a capsized kayak in the lake—but not Ryan. Rescuers, including volunteers from surrounding communities, and fishermen feared the worst when they recovered a life jacket, Ryan’s fishing pole and a tackle box holding his wallet and keys in an area of the lake with a depth of more than 220 ft.